


Centimeters in the Water

by dusktin



Category: Free!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Future Fish, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, I love my big boy Sousuke, Kinda, M/M, Merman Nanase Haruka, Mystery, Slow Burn, Souharu - Freeform, Sousuke centric, Sousuke is dumb and will be in denial probably, many first times for haru :), sobs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-11 03:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12926841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dusktin/pseuds/dusktin
Summary: A unknown man lands in Sousuke's life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I have a story and I don't know if I'll continue...  
> It was an idea that spiraled out of control. Apologies for any errors in grammar or punctuation!

Rin has and forever will have the petulance of a snotty-nosed brat after a tantrum, but he would never come to terms with it himself or grow out of it. If anything, he was too self-conscious of it.  
  
However Sousuke was there to rein him in when he or when things got too much, with Makoto of course. The trio had grown up in the same hometown and in turn had grown up together and stayed within the city. Home would always be within reach, their parents visiting each of them every few months or so.  
  
Which was why he was a tad bit troubled when Rin had declared between dinner and the stream of static from the television that he was going to see his foster mother and father back in Australia.  
  
That had been the only time he had spent apart from them, a year after his father's death and now it was his tradition to visit them. Sousuke’s head couldn't help worrying, always sticking out his neck for him.  
  
Stored in the back of his brain, distantly he knew it was the anniversary of when Rin’s father had been lost to the sea and it came back into the foreground of his mind every year. And every year Sousuke doesn’t dismiss how Rin’s eyes lost some of their liveliness when marking down the calendar’s date to it. It made all summers a apprehensive one, regardless from how much he tried to cheer himself up on.  
  
Makoto attempts for both of them, a better friend than either of them could have.  
  
Spearing him in a deadlock of a look, Rin noticed him from the bunk bed and gave him a killer grin at both their expenses.  
  
“Don't worry about me, I'll bring you a souvenir from there.” He zips it up, putting the hulking luggage to stay beneath the bunk bed and out of sight. “I sure as hell won't miss the dead weather that Japan has.”  
  
Rin was right, as the sweltering coldness was relative to them as they had become accustomed to it but in Australia it was predominately hotter. The sport jackets and the Burberry scarf Makoto had gifted him last year wouldn't come handy, as Rin swapped it out for thin shirts and cargo shorts paired with sandals.  
  
Sousuke had a faint desire, that he could go with him, to experience exactly how hot Australia was and to pay his very overdue visit to Rin’s foster parents, but duty was a noose on his neck. Sousuke took a glance at his goldenrod emblem that laid pristinely on his finely-pressed uniform.  
  
Days later at the airport between the crampedness in the rushing of passengers and the stop motions of suitcases, they all stood at a standstill that intensified with every second passing. Until Sousuke had given him a proper send off with a fist bump (he hadn’t done that since they graduated from the academy) and Makoto who had coddled him like a mothering hen by the entrance. Sousuke stands a ways from them, by the sidelines as he glimpsed up.  
  
The ever-changing message board to the flight would be in the next lapses of minutes that would be missed if Rin wouldn't stop crying, but Sousuke lets him sob it out with Makoto as he turned away. Even with his own eyes festering with a thickening throat.  
  
Yet he does accept the group hug he was lassoed into like they were kids again—it felt like they were kids again. Sousuke dared for anybody to interrupt them.  
  
They went undisturbed in the midst of the crowds as the intercom announced politely, informing them of the moments from departure.  
  
+  
  
Later, a week later, and Sousuke’s apartment is dreadfully solemn.  
  
The date is stuck in June and July, no signs of August coming soon as there’s nobody to keep track of the days in between. Satisfying clacks of a gel pen on matte card stock have been dispelled, the cord of the pen was arid by the calendar. The leaky faucet of the sink in the kitchen is a solace for the absence.  
  
That was one of Rin’s ticks after all; Sousuke has a calendar on his cellular device, built-in as many devices did. Yet sometimes despite that, it has to emphasize to him that today is today. Not yesterday or tomorrow when he’s certain it is and is promptly punished by reality.  
  
Sousuke has been lost, directionless even more in time and the important dates than life. He fingers the buttons on his phone, screen popping up.  
  
Wednesday, the somewhat middle crux of the week and the day that has specials at Sousuke’s favorite restaurant. Cheap but within reasonableness in quality. He knows the specials vaguely tapered in his mind from the lunch he had earlier. What motivates him is the dinner that he had ordered, twiddling his fingers for it. Sousuke’s savior is the divine intervention that is late night deliveries.  
  
The only traces of life was his occasional shuffling around and the piling trash he had yet to take out. Other than that, it was him and a substitute for a home that he was living in, his lifestyle wasn’t stellar at the moment.  
  
Which is why he had his friends. The ones that were strung to him from childhood memories and hadn't drifted from him yet.  
  
Sousuke knew he could count on both Makoto and Rin.  
  
Rin had a infectious aura that had glued Sousuke to him from classmates to rivals and then put him to a longevity in the fountain of friendship. A chain of friendship similar to those paper doll chains, that Sousuke can fondly find himself reminiscing on.  
  
Belatedly, Sousuke was finally feeling the drawbacks of not having him around and hating it, having under appreciated it. Thankfully he had another friend that told him it was temporary, and Sousuke clung onto that assurance.  
  
Makoto Tachibana was a saint, more prevalent than before while Sousuke was like a forlorn charity case while the godsend of a firefighter hushed him. Usually whenever there was a gap in their schedules with no sudden fires or criminal activity, Makoto would be taking rain checks on him and sharing meals while invoking some small talk out of him.  
  
“How was work today?”  
  
A charred scent punctuated his arrival prior to the door hinges creaking. It's a characteristic that had become part of Makoto, his demeanor unchanged. That's what Sousuke liked a lot about him, his leveling in his life.  
  
Shoes are taken off by the doorway, accustomed from when they did back at home, although they weren't at home anymore. Still it's too late to stop what they were taught.  
  
From where he is, Sousuke doesn't have to see that he doesn't have a meal as he insisted it was his turn to treat themselves. Niceness could only take someone so far and Sousuke was sympathetic on Makoto’s wallet. He’s pretty sure that a moth would fly out of it if he opened it. Going back to what he was doing, Sousuke goes to where he had assumed he put the remote and is successful. While brandishing it Sousuke realizes that Makoto had been patient for his reply.  
  
“Good.”  
  
Not even a second after and Sousuke can hear the tangible smile in Makoto’s tone.  
  
“That’s nice.”  
  
It was how the majority of their conversations began, defaulted on the perception of normalcy. Sousuke mulls that Makoto is similar to a housewife, from his idling when he sat himself down and how he is ultimately the first to ask how his day was before Sousuke can question it himself.  
  
Sousuke misdirects the backward glances at the assemblage of trash, scooting it under the couch when Makoto turns his head from him. After distracting him with the broadcasting on the T.V., Sousuke replaces the discrepancy with policy assignments and takeout from the corner restaurant that had been waiting on the table. Then they talked.  
  
Sousuke contemplated shortly on getting a dog, but realized that he couldn't sustain a healthy lifestyle, from the greased burger in one hand and his third beer in the other. Makoto smiled sympathetic to him, with a exalted puff of a breath whenever he listened intently. The alcohol he offered Makoto isn't taken, sitting as innocently as him, but he devours the dessert that Sousuke pushes at him. Sousuke is too full to gorge himself further and half-fears his muscles will deflate from the amount of greasiness he had already consumed.  
  
The ambience from the television is a pleasant hum as the two occupy themselves with the simplest things they can afford: food, booze, and work. Life is somewhere in the middle of those things.  
  
While food and booze went hand in hand, work had been tiresomely rammed in. Filed away complaints from mundane people and the one—two things out of ordinary were the rescues of a suspected mad scientist— ‘awarded genius, calculations minorly skewed!’ —and his personal assistant, ‘Rei-chan has his heart in the right place so don't worry too much! Haha—’ from themselves. Their names were Rei Ryugazaki and Nagisa Hazuki that were frequented in Rin and Sousuke's reports and the station’s top listings in grievances.  
  
Not to mention they lived nearby which meant Rin, Sousuke, and Makoto would be the first people on the scene.  
  
Filling up their reports from getting into their manmade trouble that couldn't quite land them in jail, much less a ticket for their grief. In lieu, Sousuke and Rin yelled at them, although it didn't do much for either of the parties. Although it was a great stress reliever from Mikoshiba’s harpings to them.  
  
The latest installment was the fire from a exploding experiment that he had met Makoto with. When the calamity had been sorted there had been a warning from the two which had become increasingly routine to them and despairing for Sousuke.  
  
“Dont stay up too late, okay?”  
  
His tonality borders on rueful and Sousuke accepts it because he means well. Then again, Makoto always meant well.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Ultimately it concluded their conversation, as Makoto eased himself out with a caring smile left in his wake. Sousuke has a presumption that this is perhaps the umpteenth conversation that went this route, but doesn't try to make it any different. Sousuke lets it be per usual.  
  
Long after Makoto had left, it was then that Sousuke had shovelled his paperwork off of the low-ended table, taking off his reading glasses from his overused eyes. Tentative of his greasy fingerprints from the manilla folders, he extracted himself from it. It was easy to get too invested in his line of work. Graciously, he had taken Rin’s workload so he wouldn't be as overwhelmed when he returned.  
  
Eyeing the clock that ticked away to twilight hours, he rose with a yawn and a aborted sigh.  
  
Flinging his house keys into his pocket, he went for a long awaited night jog to abscond the disaster that awaited him under the couch and in his home. The trash collectors didn't come till the next day anyway.  
  
Although he would go with Makoto or Rin or both, the silence was always a welcomed thing, from the steady footfalls and the way his lungs throbbed from exertion, compelling him forward. The proximity in the stretches of streets trailed into the haze of the lampposts lighting and adjacent cars, the blackest night sky above Sousuke’s head that faced out towards the ocean.  
  
The ocean had been a great comfort for him as a kid as he'd always been close to the water and Sousuke misses the seaside adventures he had with the others. Mostly misadventures though can be argued as interchangeable, that a younger Sousuke would have by the outcrops of surf and rock. Sousuke would spend hours down there with his two friends and it was one of the places he was willing to get lost to.  
  
One of the lasting marks from a historic trek out, and one of his lasts when moving abroad, was the bulking rip of a scar on his shoulder that landed him to be hospitalized and bedridden from being swallowed up into a riptide.  
  
The bad shoulder and his head acted up on days that were bountiful in lightning and rain, redder, hotter—when aggravated. He still didn't remember the day that well.  
  
It was a telling sign that Sousuke was nearing old man age, soon he would be riddled with arthritis and hunched in from fits of the shakes as Rin had joked, though Sousuke took it seriously. His shoulder was a big weakness of his that he hid and it was a more of a inconvenience than a injury.  
  
In his stooped reverie Sousuke decided to break from his regimen, well-needed in this time. The adventurous trait in him had him taking a detour, the eroding mortar steps leading to the sanded floor to the sea too alluring. In therapeutic increments, the ocean lapped at his toes, seeping into the soles of his weather worn shoes that Sousuke didn't really care about since it was off-brand and holey from months of neglect. The neighborhood cats had fun clawing and teething on them, as if Makoto didn't give them enough attention and took it out on him. Several steps and his feet hit the edge of stones into nature’s walk path of the ocean.  
  
The fresh new moon refracted splinters of illumination onto the toppings of waves that had Sousuke deeply sinking into a childhood ghost of a memory. It was hard to remember the day he went under the riptide, his brain coming up blank whenever he tried to force himself to.  
  
His parents had told him when his younger self had woken up in the stark white room that it was nothing to worry about, afraid that he would have ended up in a lifelong coma. When he asked Makoto and Rin they had said to forget about it. It bothered him a lot until he did what they said. Sousuke forgot about it. Not completely, however. It was a harboring thought that would sneak up on him ever so often.  
  
Sousuke thinks and sits down on a slab of rock that’s covered by gritty sand. He turned his eyes up heavenward to the targeted constellations for directions in the tour guide arrows to life. In response they twinkled on, without purposeful intent that he was aware of. Which Sousuke digressed that if wishes upon stars were for fools then he was the biggest fool and an acclaimed dreamer to boot.  
  
It wasn't that Sousuke was sick of life or anything of that sort, there was just—something not right. Something missing that he couldn’t pinpoint.  
  
While Sousuke was stalled in his self-driven melancholy, from the night tides was a crashing. Somewhere it came from the retreating drags of water that made his trained reflects react, getting up suddenly his consciousness concocting the worst case scenario.  
  
The toil of the waves was continuous and Sousuke imagined that it may have been nothing.  
  
There wasn't anybody besides himself, Sousuke thought, and he relaxed from that. It was just him, his thoughts, the moon and stars and the big grand ocean. Nothing else except that.  
  
The overhead beams in a multitude of combined streetlights and moonlighting streaked into the ocean and Sousuke saw it in the water. To where he couldn't distinguish between imagination and reality, in a cross realm of both.  
  
It wasn't a shark or dolphin because those didn't dare get close because of the threats of humans, human pollution, and beaching, but Sousuke saw the framed limbs of something that was human. The pallor of skin contrasted with the color of the seawater was too vivid for his imagination to concoct. ...Was that an arm? Oh God was that a body?  
  
That in itself was unsettling, Sousuke's stomach dithering back into his dinner as he backed from the waters, the sea bearing a unfamiliarity to him. Unfamiliarity the same whenever there was a promised storm to occur.  
  
Scouring the troughs, he dug in his pocket and had his phone up and switched the flashlight on.  
  
In the expansive space, there was nothing besides the murky depths that were breaching. He was being ridiculous, it was nothing and Sousuke was making it out from pure nothingness and making it come into existence. Exhaling through his nose, Sousuke dropped his phone back in his pants and went back up the stairs, casting a backwards glance at the waters below.  
  
With a last wayward stare he parted from the place, an abandonment of safety setting on him. The way back was slowed and stunted with cautiousness, Sousuke's eyes straying to the sea with his thoughts.  
  
Up the steps of the porch, locking the door and kicking off his shoes, he found his way to his and Rin’s room and was under the covers in due time. Sleep found him when he thought less on what he had saw and more on what it couldn't be, logically.  
  
But it followed him in his sleep, and in the bottomless pit of a dream were the most translucent eyes that Sousuke could see—he could feel the ocean in them, overcoming him. It calmed him immensely, unknown to him.  
  
Sousuke might drown himself in them if he could, as the air bubbles went out of his windpipe whenever he breathed in more salted water. It obscured the person in front of him, but he made out the eyes. Those eyes hounded him.  
  
His words were as clear as those eyes and the gaze he couldn't even try to look away from.  
  
_Who are you?_  
  
+  
  
The uneven blinds in the room caused a wave of yellow to awaken Sousuke, startling him from the sun’s rising intensity. He should get curtains, his mind doggedly lags on.  
  
Yawning, he sprawled out on the olden mattress that dipped drastically from how huge he was and the abuse it took. It was miraculous that the flimsy support didn't cave in one night.  
  
Having no recollection of his dream that was beginning to ebb and flow off into the air, Sousuke could barely recall the vivacity of blue with what he associated was the ocean and the blurring events from before. On his bedside, he’s switching off his alarm that had been blaring for the past five minutes, while soothing an itch underneath his shirt and the cricks in his back.  
  
Toothpaste splattered on his shirt before he traded it for his uniform, fixing his tie bar but not his name tag or badge that affirmed his title. The navy police hat was superfluous, as Sousuke donned it, the flopping brim obscuring his face.  
  
Taking the keys, he stopped on the porch to shoo off the cats that went to climb on his legs. Sousuke wasn't a immovable tree, although to them he was.  
  
Nevertheless, he drove to work, his languidness taking in the daily bustle of his life. The elderly lady he had considered like a grandmother who sold flowers by the opposite corner of his street waved to him and Sousuke returned it, feeling a heavy weight of the droll in repetition upon his shoulders.  
  
+  
  
Bringing in the paperwork that was due, for Rin, Sousuke went in exchanging customary greetings with a few of his co-workers. The block was barren as Sousuke propped himself in his desk while mowing down what Mikoshiba told him to do.  
  
Needless to say, not many took the position of the morning and graveyard shifts. They were the cogs in the bigger machine, the grander scheme as Mikoshiba went on. The pay was decent for someone like him. He could provide for himself, at least. Being an apartment mate with Rin did have its pros, divvying up their incomes with one another.  
  
The telephone on his desk vibrates with a trill and Sousuke picked it up on the second ring, as he had been going through the files.  
  
“This is—”  
  
“Officer Yamazaki!” The harried individual that was Ryugazaki made him take the phone from his ear, his voice screeches. “You need to come to the beach straight away, right now, please!” His assistant was talking over him and their words ran together that had Sousuke vexed from the confusion and noise. From the computer's clock, the time isn't past noon yet. Explosions happened at a timetable that had been created for fun by the other officers and it didn't correlate with it.  
  
Sousuke drawls in a sigh and lets the two have the benefit of doubt. “What is it this time Ryugazaki? One of your wonky experiments blew up again?”  
  
A indignant scoff erupted in the phone comm. “No! Excuse you but this is a serious problem and all due respect—hey!”  
  
The transfer is to Hazuki, the transmission sputtering. The other pants out in elation, “Basically there's a guy that we found. We’re not sure if he's asleep or not, but—!”  
  
From that, Sousuke is spurred that this may be an actual problem that involves a innocent bystander. Also it was better than doing prolonged cataloguing and the office gossip. Whipping on his jacket, he decided to check it for himself.  
  
“I'll be there. Do I need to call an ambulance?”  
  
“No—I don't think. Just hurry up!”  
  
“Where?” The line crackles.  
  
“The beach! Can't you hear it?” Sousuke can but he has to confirm it. The rotations from the waves echo in the receiver and Sousuke thinks back to the night before, and the limb he had seen. Goosebumps rose and fell on his arms and he puts his waterproof jacket on more firmly, pushing his thoughts back. He hasn't registered that he's hung up on.  
  
Out of his office, he nods to Mikoshiba. His superior doesn't even have to inquire him as he waves him off, having previous knowledge that it was the scientist and his part-time understudy. His phone’s speakers had deafened out his ears each time they got a call from the two. It would be a ten minute drive without the bustle of morning traffic.  
  
Getting into the squad vehicle, he drove to the pier. Not much traffic, too early for the town to wake up. The sun rays went through his mirrors, painting the interior with a orange hue.  
  
Parking the car, he radios in before heading out. On this beachside, Sousuke rented the apartment on where no one would come near, the sensible people. Sousuke had convinced Rin it was for tranquility but primarily for him, to get away from the mainstream center that all cities had.  
  
Fishermen used the spots for lure, and rode out to sea earlier than him that he applauded them for. From what Rin told him it wasn't the best job, as his father had been largely away for most of his life.  
  
Treacherous from the cliffhanger and the pollution of where things would be dumped, it's not the most scenic location that can be offered. A dingy cliff surrounds them, relative to where he had been. Ridges of it have been carved from the pull of the waves against it.  
  
The sand caked his polished shoes and he grimaced. Inspection wasn't often and Sousuke hopes that it wouldn't be on this day. Hazuki was gesturing at him and he goes over to them.  
  
“Where's the guy?”  
  
Ryugazaki’s eyes dart to him before he walks further. Behind them, Sousuke follows, the mist of the waves wetting the ends of his pants. The water is invidious this time around. When they stop it's near where he had sat last night. Further off is the cliff, a pocket in the sea and land.  
  
“Here. He's tangled in a net too.”  
  
Crouching down, Sousuke spots a pale foot and the netting that lengthens around it. Outlining it there's an equally pale hand and he focuses on that, because it's the exact one he saw last night. Down to the fingernails, to the bony knuckles. His breath catches and he's aware the two saw that. Harrumphing instead, he begins to move the clothing off him.  
  
A hand shot out before him. “What are you doing?!”  
  
“Taking it off?”  
  
“For a policeman, you sure are dumb Sou-chan.” Sousuke ignores the comment.  
  
“What?”  
  
“He's naked!”  
  
Sousuke isn't going to ask why though he’ll have to later. Preferably with the guy behind bars and with clothes on.  
  
Instead he looks to them, authoritative now. Pointing over by the stairs he directs them to it. “Go over there unless you want to be brought into interrogation.”  
  
“You can't do that.” Sousuke has a badge to prove that he can.  
  
He shoots them with his famous stink eye. “I can and I will. You two are the ones who made the call and are the only witnesses at the moment.”  
  
The pair move willingly from him.  
  
Since he doesn't have eyes on him, he peers down, accessing the situation. Sousuke grunts but takes off his own waterproof uniform and puts it over his shoulder, left in his short-sleeves. The breeze whistles through and he instantly shudders.

All he can see is a foot and arm, and the whiteness that lays in the sand that unsettled him. But there's a abrupt movement, making him take to his gun at his belt.  
  
Eyes that resembled shiny cobalt glass, containing water and an unspoken voice meet his. They widen as they look into his own, and for a rare moment, Sousuke experiences a fear, feels afraid, exposed to a stranger he hasn't seen before. He feels like a young boy than a man in his youthful twenties.  
  
Inked hair that is pressed on his skin, and Sousuke can see his face wholly. He's never seen someone with eyes so rich in blue or skin so pale in color and his breathing buckles in his ribs and the thudding in his chest ramps up a bit.  
  
The stranger reeks of the sea, as if he was born from it. Sand scatters beads on his flesh along with the seasalt water. Decaying fish litter the net that umbrellas out that has Sousuke’s nose scrunching from the wafting smell.  
  
The eyes regard him quietly before the man sits up, Sousuke’s hand still on the hilt of his weapon but it's in its holster. The lab coat pools to the waist, legs still visible and he goes to move further but an brow furrows on the other’s features.  
  
Sousuke looks down and sees an inflamed ankle that's caught in a fisherman’s net. The man is perplexed but it becomes panic, his hands coming down to wrench at the netting before Sousuke stops him, his hand on top of it. Its inhumanely chilling and Sousuke feels his own body heat being leeched from.  
  
“Don't panic it'll worsen it.” Putting his hand to the net, he pulls. Stripping it off, his fingers are puffy from the strain but Sousuke dislodges him from it. His face seemed menacing to some and appends, "I'm here to help," if that would make him pacified. Fish scales scattered from that and the other for a fleeting moment, appeared to be apologetic, his eyes going to Sousuke’s hands. Odd, but it was a fisherman’s net from the dead fish that had been in it, it was a abundance of scalloped scales. Dead fish eyes gape up at Sousuke.  
  
The man doesn't stop his blatant peering at him and Sousuke clears his throat.  
  
“What's your name and why are you naked? You could—should be arrested for indecent exposure.” The man just gazes back and Sousuke tsks. Either he was playing dumb or he was trying to evade from being arrested, or both. Putting the jacket around his shoulders Sousuke gestures for him to put it on.  
  
Taking a few moments, the other complies as Sousuke turned to let him have decency, while talking into his radio and informing Mikoshiba who is flabbergasted but tells him to bring him in.  
  
“Do you need medical attention?” A blinking of those eyes has Sousuke diverting his attention. All the while the other is watching him and Sousuke thinks that it's irksome.  
  
“Well you have to come with me, understand that you won't be getting off scot-free. A translator will be provided if you need one—” he interrupts himself because the other had nodded to him.  
  
“Wait you can understand me?” Another nod. Sousuke had been flip-flopping between Japanese and English based on the man’s countenance but if he could understand both, then he had some intelligence.  
  
Sousuke infers that he could understand him from his gesturing but not from his speech so he deducts deafness and opts to muteness. There's the theory that the stranger could be intoxicated, hence why he was naked and in a seaman’s trap. Though he doesn't smell alcohol on him either, and his eyes are too clear to be high or drugged.  
  
“Can you talk?” A gaze that Sousuke can't interpret but he takes it as a no. The stranger was indecisive, eyes flickering back to the ocean.  
  
Getting up, Sousuke towers over him. He must be intimidating as the unspoken other looks down at his toes. They're pristine and clean, sand clumping onto them and Sousuke is caught staring. Masking it, Sousuke vision goes off into the ocean, a dulling grey than a blue today.  
  
“Can you stand?” The questions should be simple and the other doesn't respond. Rising, Sousuke’s thankful for his own sake that his coat is big enough that it cloaks the other fine. However his legs wobble, a tremor running through him while Sousuke notices the severity in his injury. His ankle goes out from him, but before he can fully fall Sousuke has him by the arms.  
  
Steadying him, he lets the hands stay on his forearms. Digits of those cold fingers prick into his clothing, as the man balances himself.  
  
“Don't force yourself, I’ll carry you.” Sweeping him up, Sousuke supported him by the junction of his legs, the lab coat in the lap of the other. Sousuke won't handcuff him, he doesn't have to.  
  
Yet the silent other doesn't appear too pleased as he pushed at his chest that almost had him topple out from his arms. Lurching out to keep him from doing that, the other grappled onto the lapels and then glared to him as if Sousuke were the one at fault.  
  
Seeing that, Sousuke puts him down as the other tethered on the ground without his support. Upright his legs aren't steady, quivering in the sand and Sousuke wonders if he wasn't meant for walking. Perhaps he had a disability but Sousuke couldn't tell.  
  
“I thought you couldn't walk. The mute man shook his head and takes a step in confidence but crumples into the sand. Sending seaweed and a spray of water and damp sand at Sousuke that the latter wipes off of him.  
  
Sitting up, the unarmed man picks out the greenery from his hair, a souring expression on his otherwise expressionless face. His knees were scraped by the brute force of impact and the craggily surfaces, red lines marred into his skin.  
  
Taking a breather, Sousuke crouched down to the other. “You're stubborn and hurting and I get that, I really do. But your ankle is busted and you can't put anymore weight on it without worsening it.” The man’s eyes drink in Sousuke.  
  
Discoloration is prominent against the pallid pigmentation of his skin, and Sousuke has a pang of sympathy when the man sits on top of it, as if hiding it from him. He's sure he's channeling Makoto from that and the patience he has today. The self-inflictions on the man’s knees heap onto that.  
  
The other turns to him and then puts a hand on Sousuke’s good shoulder. Unexpectedly, Sousuke doesn't flinch from the sudden act. Then the unnamed man pats on it.  
  
When Sousuke doesn't process it, the other pats it again in a tempo until Sousuke removes his hand. He holds onto it in a briefness, before he lets go.  
  
“Carry you over my shoulder—?” He was definitely channeling Makoto, fireman carrying was something that Makoto had taught him but he never thought he would use it.  
  
Nodding the strange man tried to wedge himself on his shoulder but Sousuke put him firmly on without much resistance. His legs rested beside his face, as Sousuke made sure he was covered by his jacket, pulling it down for his own precautions and safety measures. Looking up to him, the mute man peers out to the sea then looks skyward. Picking up the lab coat and netting while holding onto the arm of the man, he went to the two that were still there.  
  
“I'm confiscating this for evidence. I don't think you'll want it now, anyway.” Sousuke looks to the other who's on his shoulder who seemed to be galled but was staying put.  
  
Rei fiddled with his glasses as he scrutinized them. “Will he be okay?”  
  
“Apart from his ankle, yes. If anything develops I'll let you know.” Sousuke meant it as they were the ones who got him into this.  
  
Ascending the flight of stairs, Sousuke struggles with opening the door before he manages to do it, carefully lowering the other onto the back seats. Putting the ‘evidence’ in the trunk of the car, he views the man who is staring out the window that is halfway down. His fingers are hooked onto the opening and he taps at them before closing up the windows.  
  
Every now and then Sousuke’s eyes goes to the rear view mirror while the stranger is eying the sea until it's out of view. With that, he looks to him as Sousuke is unnerved.  
  
The ocean had been drained from the windows but it was like a lingering afterthought, as Sousuke tramples the questioning for later.  
  
Instead he wonders who in the world this man was and why he was here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, kudos, anything will be appreciated! Thank you for reading! Updates (if wanted) may be every few weeks as I have college.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. I'll warn you beforehand there's mention of suicide but not in the way you're thinking. It's purely analytical but if it bothers you its better to have a warning! Sorry for errors its 3 in the morning

The boldly lettered _SAMEZUKA POLICE DEPARTMENT_ isn’t a difficult thing to miss, lighting up the sleepy town like a red beacon in a stormy night. It proudly stands from the standardized rows of complexes and stores. The institution is a general comfort to the inhabitants of the town, a overlooking and upholding protector.  
  
The holding cells for interrogations is barred up for change in decor (though Sousuke can't really fathom why since its a cell) and not updated unlike the rest of the facility. Something more about inspections, as Mikoshiba had put it.  
  
Decidedly, Sousuke didn't find it suitable. Other than the violation, he didn't categorize him in the prototypes of a pervert or a flasher.  
  
His detainee had behaved and had obeyed his directions up to now, so why should he be a hardass?  
  
If Rin was here he knew that he would have released the mute man with a precautionary warning, no further questions asked. That was just who he was.  
  
Rin was the good cop and Sousuke was the bad cop, they had nailed the concept down and were the power duo. Without the other, Sousuke would be perceived as an ass.  
  
Sousuke wishes Rin was there.  
  
Sousuke whisks him to his work-space that's more secluded, compared to the other stations, to be positive that they're alone after his chief had given him the green light to continue with the investigation. It would be a matter of time until the entire agency caught scent of the man and his mystery and Sousuke had to buy himself time before that happened.  
  
When it came to something new or potentially exciting, they were sharks to bloodied and dying prey. If he had entered one of the detaining cells, it would have definitely raised a brow or two.  
  
Besides him, Mikoshiba knew of the man and the older commanding officer was every bit as mischievous as his kid brother when he wanted to be. Unfortunately for Sousuke and the rest of the department.  
  
A decade old cellophane bag from the nearby supermarket was dumped into the trash and he dusts off his hands on his pants. Sousuke had begun the valiant attempt to clean out his desk for his new assignment.  
  
The fisherman's netting and labcoat are in a plastic baggie that he hadn’t labelled yet. It radiates a foul odor and is a subtle reminder for Sousuke to stop by to carry out his investigation to the scientist and the astronomer.  
  
The paperwork he had completed was catalogued back into the cabinets or sent to Mikoshiba and the bushels of others he had put on hold were on his desk, teeming like white sprouts from plants. His deceased inked pens sat in a mug that was far too nice to drink from. Both the Matsuokas had gifted him on his 20th birthday, the cartoon whaleshark gaping its cavernous mouth at him as it always brought a blithe sensation upon glance.  
  
_“Doesn’t it look like him?” Gou said upon Sousuke unwrapping the package._  
  
_Rin grins, all sharp edges of teeth and encompassing radiance. “That’s why we chose it.”_  
  
It’s a jubilant occasion to dwell on, the present had been given to him after their entrance exams in the police academy. He had been antsy, as one of the requirements to join the workforce was no physical handicaps and his shoulder had brought further inspection and nitpicking. When he had passed with Rin and that they were accepted, he couldn’t help himself and hugged Rin the hardest he had in awhile. Sousuke smiles secretly to himself as he remembered.  
  
While he's darting about, the newcomer is dawdling after him until Sousuke brought over a chair and says, “Sit.”  
  
The man does what he says without so much as a breath of a complaint and if he did, he showed no outward signs of it. He shouldn't walk on that bummed ankle anyway.  
  
Sousuke is glad that he isn't like the many people he had to deal with before.  
  
Nearly forgetting about the contusion from his negligence, Sousuke rummages through the desk drawers until he comes up with the basic medkit. Dragging his chair over to the other, he gestures onto his knee. Automatically, the other picks up on his cue and puts his bruised ankle onto his leg.  
  
He could tell that it would heal in a months time, depending if the other was compliant.  
  
The coldness leaks through his pants and Sousuke bumps his leg up from the contact, uncomfortable.  
  
His flesh had retained the pallor it has, although Sousuke could see the budding rosiness onto his skin, his body was degrees colder than a average temperature. But then again, Sousuke was like a furnace of fire so he couldn't be so certain.  
  
+  
  
After the fingerprints and the mandatory mugshot were uploaded into the system along with some more time wasted, Sousuke had wounded up with a name as he then spared a glance to the man.  
  
A towel rests atop his head, sponging up the wetness from his hair. It acts as a hood, blocking his eyes from him.  
  
He didn't enjoy being stared at, since every time he did it was as if he was seeing him through a spyglass, distant.  
  
Sousuke’s sure that there's a puddle of seawater under him, unseen from him. He was still draped with his uniform that made him seem insignificant from the sheer size of it with the police sweats Sousuke had nabbed him.  
  
Sousuke didn't really want his clothes back, reasoning that it smelled like a fish market.  
  
He was bored, his field of vision roving every crevice and crack of the infrastructure of his office, to his desk and filing cabinets, until lastly onto Sousuke. His gaze traps Sousuke and he finds himself making an effort to talk to dissipate the quietude.  
  
“Your name, it’s Haruka Nanase?” It's a girly name, he thinks. Distant and remoteness.  
  
Blue eyes and black hair that made up a frighteningly flat face hounded him and it was as if Sousuke was in a split intermittence. It was like the present individual in front of him was an afterimage of the one on his monitor.  
  
He picks out the key facts in the text that serves as his makeshift autobiography on his computer. It’s saddening as he gives it a quick once-over.  
  
His legal guardian was his grandmother, virtually nothing about his parents or signs of the startings in a criminal background. His documentation checked out as he scrolled down.  
  
Born in Iwatobi, Japan in the Tottori Prefecture on June 30th, that was the only real personal trait he could take from his records as there wasn't much to go off of. If it could even be taken as personal, it wasn’t even about him. Statistics and data didn't tell much about a person, facts and numbers taking that fraction up.  
  
Sousuke should be glad. Haruka isn’t a criminal as he had suspected.  
  
Even if he couldn't see, Sousuke can tell that his eyes are burrowing into him and Sousuke clicked off the window, silently displeased at the absence of information on the man. Even traffic tickets had more context than the person across from him.  
  
The recent establishment that he was also a local and that Sousuke hadn't known anything about him, much less seen him anywhere was inexplicable in itself. Everything that he was discovering about him was wrong.  
  
Sousuke couldn't explain it, but his gut knew better than his head and nothing was adding up. And Sousuke was someone who relied on his guts much more.  
  
All of this would be included in the report, Sousuke sidenotes.  
  
Eventually… if Sousuke could weasel a piece of something viable from the other, opposed to what he had.  
  
It was as if he had been dropped off in his care and that Sousuke had to solve this mystery that came with him. While the mystery of a person was impeding him with his current state of silence.  
  
Sousuke was a policeman, not a detective after all.  
  
Haruka gave a nod at him, confirming his name as he shifted in his seat, touching lightly at the uniform. His fingertips went to the bandaging around his swollen joint, nimbly at the the metal clipping.  
  
“Are you mute?” The man owlishly blinked at him. Was that blink a yes or no, Sousuke couldn’t decipher it. Sousuke increasingly felt like he was playing a game of questionnaire than interrogation.  
  
The inkling of deafness came back to him and Sousuke felt dumb for dismissing that.  
  
He didn't get a worded answer, what did he expect? Sousuke let out some of his frustration in the form of a lengthy, drawn out breath. He organized his files around, the still warm one from the printing machine about Haruka on the front.  
  
“In interviews you have to speak or communicate in some way or I'll be forced to charge you.” He hadn't asked for a lawyer and police could lie in interrogations, it wasn't against the law for that. As long as he was free to leave, Haruka have not been officially arrested yet.  
  
But spying at the other who sat across from him, there was a backslide in his concurrent mood.  
  
For all he knew, the man could well be amnesiac and might have drowned at sea.  
  
His thinking took a detour, something darker and macabre but isn't beyond the realm of possibility.  
  
A suicide attempt wouldn’t be too farfetched.  
  
Japan did have one of the highest rate of suicides. Suicide demographics were doubled for the male population and occurred frequently in the men compared to the women between the ages of twenty to the mid-forties. Haruka was the same age as him, in the glory stage of his twenties.  
  
From the chronological process of him trying to drown, Sousuke put it together in his head.  
  
Haruka’s parents died that left him estranged with the one relative he has, with a grandmother that wouldn’t be there for long. Not being able to talk with others he regresses to a _hikikomori_ , reveling in the isolation and confinement, frustrated with his voiceless self. Unable to understand it, Haruka would be standing on the cliff one lonely night and take the leap. But instead he ended up in the a fisherman’s net and was brought ashore. The crash from the night before and the thin arm he had seen penetrates his consciousness, the puzzle piece slotting into place in the final reveal.  
  
It could have been all a miserable failure that made Haruka go to end it all. He could be withholding himself because of the shame that came with suicide. Suicide was stigmatized to a grievous extent.  
  
Though this was all his speculation, only Haruka himself could speak the absolute truth.  
  
Haruka’s eyebrows quirked up before he exhaled and parted his mouth. The clock was thundering in his ears as he focused on Haruka. Sousuke found himself leaning forward, somewhat in electrified trepidation. Finally, progress.  
  
His voice hadn't been heard, as it came out as a wisp of dry air and he hacked into his hands. Sousuke immediately regretted asking him, a bout of disappointment lost.  
  
Did he really suffer from a sort of illness that prohibited his speech? Whatever it was, he felt immediately bad as his belly clenched down in guilt, his agitations boiling down to lukewarm.  
  
Rifling through his stationary he puts out his last option. Sliding over a stray piece of paper, he took one of his ballpoint pens and placed it in front of the other. He waited.  
  
As his coughing fit died down, Haruka wiped at his mouth and took the pen without any prodding. With a stiff hand he wrote something short, as Sousuke held back his curiosity and settled for crossing his arms instead.  
  
The analogue clock on the wall prattled in the inside of Sousuke’s brain, his subconscious mirroring the action of the second hand. His own fingers began to thrum on the wooden desk. It was a quarter past twelve.  
  
After a minute of a concentrating Haruka, he pushed the paper towards Sousuke who took it in a flash.  
  
I'm hungry. Feed me now.  
  
Sousuke lowers the paper and looks at him, _actually_ looks at him. Squints his eyes a little. In a way, Haruka had debunked his ideology and the puzzle that had been completed was a milk puzzle. No picture formed, a blank space.  
  
Meaning he had gotten nowhere fast.  
  
Haruka takes it back and scribbles down something else. Sousuke doesn't lean back this time. He hands it back to him, a triumphant lift of his lips on his face.  
  
I'm hungry. Feed me now. Please.  
  
Sousuke didn't know if the one word added made it any different than before.  
  
It was a lie to say that it wasn't illegible but it was as if the other had picked up a pen and wrote for the first time in the many years of his life. The squiggly writing only furthered the officer’s mental turbulence. He was peeved that the first thing he was bestowed with was Haruka demanding Sousuke for food.  
  
Before he could talk to him, there was a knock at his door and he huffed. Inwardly, he was relieved for the interruption. Going to the door he left it open a crack to keep a eye on him as he saw that it was his superior.  
  
“Mikoshiba-san,” he said upon arrival as the man took a gander behind him. That's when he closed the door, when seeing that the block had miraculously filled up in the span of a hour. Seeing him, everyone went back to their tasks though from the corner of their eyes to their ears, they were all on him.  
  
The man straightened. “So how is he?”  
  
Sousuke gives a roll of his shoulders. “I really can't tell. He can't speak, but he can write.” The paper is still in his hand and he lets Mikoshiba see it. The man only laughs to Sousuke’s annoyance.  
  
“So other than indecent exposure, there isn't much that's going against him.” Mikoshiba says what Sousuke already knows. “Maybe someone left him for the fishes, dumping him in the ocean. The Mafia could be behind this.”  
  
Sousuke refrains from speaking.  
  
Mikoshiba appeared to be thoughtful. “Well we can't keep him here. So…” he sneakily smirks at him and Sousuke wonders what idiotic idea he came up with. “...you're going to be responsible for him!”  
  
“Sir…” Sousuke is about to make a argument on his part but his chief skewers him with a dissatisfied staredown.  
  
Mikoshiba clamps a hand on his shoulder and a twinge of displeasure runs hot through his tendons. Unbeknownst to him, that was his bad shoulder. Sousuke keeps a impassive face.  
  
“Yamazaki you found him, therefore you will be in charge of him.” He made it sound like he found a lost puppy, not a person. “He'll be in your custody while he recovers from his injury.” Sousuke’s ire is evident as he grits his teeth.  
  
He's walking past him before he can make a competent case for himself. “I expect a report sometime tomorrow. Can you do that Yamazaki?” The hidden intention had rung out in his statement.  
  
“Yes.” Sousuke chews out and he glowered ruthlessly at everyone else.  
  
It's a unsaid rule to not get him angered, forewarned by Rin as he took himself seriously. They make themselves scarce, as he goes back into his station.  
  
Sousuke senses that he's magnified under Haruka’s gaze as soon as he's back in the room. If he desired answers then he'd have to go along with Haruka.  
  
“So what do you want to eat?”  
  
+  
  
The day shouldn't be this beautiful, with the decrepit cherry blossom trees and the metallic sheet that the sky resembles. The crisp atmosphere makes up for what comes with the changing of seasons, condensated exhales fogging up the sky.  
  
Sousuke decides to not tell Haruka that he's his part-time caretaker at the moment. He doesn't exactly know how he'll react or if he would care.  
  
Either way, it was a maddening thing to keep to himself and to have knowledge of.  
  
A gust blows by them, delivering a bone-aching tiredness from the forecast that has Sousuke pulling at his trench coat tighter and fending off the climate. The wool clothing doesn't shield him from the impending cold front and Haruka shivers.  
  
Sousuke had went at a considerate pace, which he was use to as he did have to slow his steps due to his long legs, as Haruka limped along with him. He should have crutches to promote his recovery faster, but that required going to a doctor and payments were expensive even with insurance. Sousuke avoided those, knowing they'd tried to persuade him with physical therapy or pills that would somehow absolve his shoulder issue.  
  
Even though he had spent his whole summer cooped up in a rehabilitation as a child and the doctors had assured him as he was young it would be better with time, which he guesses isn't wrong.  
  
Still, it doesn't go unnoticed by Sousuke and for the wellbeing of the other, they had already come to the destination.  
  
Sousuke turns to him. “Is this good?” It's where he occasionally ate. Where the town had the second-best tonkatsu—it makes him remember his mother's cooking—but he sees that Haruka isn't behind him.  
  
His panicking isn't immediate, but he does flail for Haruka in his head whilst cursing at himself, backtracking his steps.  
  
It doesn't take too long with how his leg is.  
  
He's more at ease when spotting the blackened strands of hair that are flung haphazardly by the breeze and he's hit with the undeniable smell of the sea, (he should really shower), that the other was standing in front of a revolving sushi joint and bar.  
  
“If you wanted that all you could do was ask—” and then he noticed his error and he fumbles but Haruka is fixated on the winking store advertisements. Sousuke looks too, the fluorescence of the neon advertising that sushi wasn't the main food they sold.  
  
Haruka points then looks over to him, eyes expectant, a hunger in his drive. His eyes were shimmering with a untold enthusiasm and Sousuke can tell he made up his mind, his own preferences not mattering.  
  
Sousuke concedes. “Okay. Sushi it is.” Haruka probably didn't hear him as he was going on his merry way, heading inside. A bell jangled vivaciously from their arrival with customary choruses of hello that followed after it. Even if Japan wasn't too big on Christmas, the restaurant was primed with festivity to draw in customers. Profit was profit, and Christmas was a another one of those profitable holiday.  
  
Seating themselves in the two booths, Sousuke can perceive rather than see the palpable alter in Haruka’s disposition. It's amazing what food can do to someone's mood.  
  
Sousuke relates to it, when he didn't get the adequate amount of pork cutlet in the weekdays he wasn't the most agreeable guy to be around, as Makoto put it eloquently.  
  
His eyes glitter in a way that is too adoring to be simplified to his appetite, as he points to what he wants on the menu. Sousuke knows he'll have to put it all on his tab as a steaming cup of tea billows in face that Haruka takes away from him. Sousuke settles on a alcoholic beverage. It's too low-priced for him feel a buzz, as he swirled the umber bottle in his grip.  
  
Courses of sashimi of varying creatures of the deep caught by the coastline (‘it's the mornings catch!’) were put in front of Haruka correspondingly, while Sousuke can get away with pork ramen. The fried pork on top of the mountain of barley noodles is what he really craved for. The foamy gold sloshes in the ceramic bowl, as he pushed the vegetable garnishes to the side. A wafting of herb aromatics fanned out on his face, putting back the warmth from the bitter cold he had endured, the hotness of the noodles in his mouth bringing a sense of pleasantness.  
  
Plucking at his chopsticks, Haruka disregarded them after a sparse minute and used his hands, eating the sushi in a crazed manner that made Sousuke observe him over the rim of his bowl. He was sure the whole restaurant had a conjoined mindset: Using your hand was fine, but both at once? Sousuke wondered if he was ever had lessons in etiquette as a child.  
  
“Y’know you could get a bad case of indigestion at the rate you're going,” he vocalized the inner thoughts of everyone in the restaurant and Haruka offers a imitation of a shrug. The guy was too pitiful to be a human, Sousuke mused to himself.

He also ate a lot of mackerel, plates stacking up and up. With how he was eating, he would put Sousuke in the poorhouse.

Sousuke pulls apart the meat, spooning some of the broth on it. “Have it your way then. Don't whine to me about it later.” The man acts as if he hadn't eaten in years, cheeks bulging out as he swallowed it down in seconds, letting out a contented little breath of a sigh. He burps behind a hand and Sousuke snorts at him.  
  
Sousuke can see out of his peripheral, can tell that Haruka is staring _again_ and at him squarely while he slurps and licks at the droplet that dripped to his chin. His fingers curl around the bottleneck, the crystalline liquidity mingling well with the richness of the meal. Unlike Haruka he belches loudly.  
  
Haruka dutifully examines him, tracing the slopes of his rounded out shoulders to end at his drowsy slanted eyes and Sousuke ponders how he can be so unmoving. The sole movements are his eyes as he waits on Sousuke.  
  
“I like to savor my food, unlike you scarfing all of that down.” He replied half-heartedly as he dissected his meal.  
  
Haruka puts a hand onto his cheek, putting his elbow down on the table. The warmth from the tea coupled with a happy belly had lulled the other in a contentedly peace of mind. The man eyelids drooped dangerously, the beginnings of dozing off inherent, in spite that Sousuke had to finish the vegetables that had been left over.  
  
By that time as Sousuke let out an exalted puff; the feather light exhalations and deeper inhaliations from Haruka were a telltale sign that he had fallen into a slumber. Sousuke flags down a waiter and pays partially and saves what he can't afford for the bill, letting him rest. If he's taking him out to eat again, it would be on his turf and meat-related.  
  
Sousuke wasn't heartless or rude enough to wake him from how soundly he slept on.  
  
It must have been an exhausting day for him from how seamlessly it had taken for him to sleep in a public place.  
  
He was bemused that Haruka fell asleep right after eating his fill. Like a young kid that habitually feel asleep under the blanketed kotatsu on a wintry day after a dinner.  
  
Sousuke thinks better about the precedent that he had made before with his misplaced judgment.  
  
His eyes could be more expressive than any person he had seen, rivaling Rin’s whenever he was passionate. Who needs a voice if his eyes conveyed it all? For Haruka, maybe that was all he needed.  
  
His mannerisms weren't as robotic as he had gotten the impression of, Haruka wasn't an android underneath those bones and skin. He was a living, breathing person albeit an unusual one.  
  
His head is in the cradle of his palm, freed from the concerns of his predicament and payment of his hefty lunch. Cordially, Sousuke let his hand shake him awake. He had warmed up a lot, Sousuke noted. His hand is in the aperture of skin and wool and Sousuke pulls away from it.  
  
“Nanase.”  
  
The surname trips over his tongue and to him it doesn't sound right, loose and ill-fitting like the clothing on him. But Sousuke didn't know him well enough to start addressing him by his first name so he would have to make do.  
  
Maybe he should avoid his name altogether.  
  
Slowly he came to, bleary and watery-eyed as he yawned. He peered at Sousuke, lethargic with curiosity. The blueness in his eyes washes over Sousuke and he glances away.  
  
“Let’s go. I already paid.” He doesn't disclose that he hadn't paid it all, though he doesn't think Nanase would care about his expenses. He goes to put on his outerwear and waits by the door for Nanase.  
  
+  
  
The walk is longer as he leads Nanase to his apartment. The marine waters can be seen from rooftops or if Sousuke cranes his head higher and lifts himself up on his toes.  
  
The waters were tumultuous during the coldest season. Nanase is glancing at it, while Sousuke jimmies the keyhole. It wrenches open with a shoving of his body and he’s stumbling into the apartment, narrowly kneeing himself. Maintaining his coolness, he slips off his shoes and is too indolent to get the house slippers that he had bought.  
  
The apartment is modest at best, compartmentalized in sectors with the living room and kitchen. It's one room rather than two, paired, that branched to other rooms and a bathroom. Minimalism is what their living space is.  
  
Clutter overflows from the countertops to the couch, as he didn't have a roommate to chide at him.  
  
Frames are on the walls, times of when the trio of friends were children. The pictures of them, grown up and matured are latched into the storage of their phones.  
  
Behind him he hears the uneven footfalls of Nanase and he sees that he has his eyesight at the photographs on the wall to the waste that is awaiting Sousuke that's beginning to live and populate on the room table and what's hidden by the couch.  
  
Before he can say a word or summon an excuse, Nanase brushes past him, a idling beeline to the washroom. He hadn't taken off his shoes and Sousuke is perpetually disconcerted.  
  
Sousuke takes it that his stomach was giving him grief and is about to say that he was right. The facet to the tub squeaks on and he retracts it.  
  
“I'll leave some clothes by the door. Don't leave the water on for too long Nanase.” His name had slipped out again. Somehow it came more naturally.  
  
Sousuke isn’t heard over the burbling stream from the spigot that had went up in speed as he traipses around the strewn about garbage.  
  
Since he had a houseguest, he had to make it presentable, he supposed. Procrastinating, he gathered the fast food wrappers and day old aluminum cans and left it on the curb. In his fridge he brought out food scraps that he would leave out for the fluffy felines that occupied his and mostly Makoto’s doors, putting it by the porch mat and potted plants that couldn't be kept inside.  
  
Too much extra work and Sousuke didn’t water them, that was Rin’s job. But Rin wasn't there so the designated position was on him.  
  
The leaves were withered that wasn't caused from the frostbite of the air, browned and pathetically fraying, a mound of dried-up leaves at the base of the stem. From the lack of sunlight and care they wouldn't last very long.  
  
He assumed that he would get an earful from Rin if it died on him. Placing the chipped bowl by the plants he got the water bottle he had grabbed on his way out, dousing the plants with it plentifully. He put it in the clay pot so he wouldn't forget the next day.  
  
In his room, he scoured his closet for the crutches and something for Nanase for wear. His clothing is big and it's a task to get something that would fit someone. He's around the same height as Rin…  
  
Sousuke is taking articles off the hangers that Rin had outgrown along with his own. He suppose this would be an adequate change for clothes through the week or if Nanase was finicky on their fashion. Underwear wouldn’t be something he would provide.  
  
When he was done, he left the clothes by the door. The man was still in the bathroom and it was the late-afternoon, past two. He had been in the bath for more than an hour.  
  
Sousuke was like any other person when showering, get clean and out but he couldn't be sure of the preferences Nanase had.  
  
Sousuke knocks twice. “Hey, did you fall asleep?” There's a splash of motion as he's still bathing. He doesn't seem to be in any distress and Sousuke doesn't want to eavesdrop in on him. “I know the water is nice when it's hot but don't fall asleep.” You could have drowned is unsaid. “If you need anything I'll be back shortly.” He's reminded of the two witnesses he has to go see.  
  
Trading out his trench coat for his thicker police apparel, he routes his way back to the station.  
  
The man in his bathtub plagues his mind as he reasons that he can be out for a hour or several to get work done. He also needs to get him those crutches and would ask Makoto if he had any. Or look harder around.  
  
Upon getting to his workplace, a arm is slung over his shoulders. “Hey Yamazaki-senpai I heard from my brother that there's a man shrouded in mystery.” Momotarou, peeks over his shoulders as if he would apparate. If he was anymore childish, Momotarou would have pouted. “Where is he?”  
  
Sousuke takes the arm off of him and heads to his office. “At my place. His ankle has to get better and walking around on it won't do that.”  
  
The boy rambles to the many probabilities of who Haruka Nanase is until Sousuke shuts the door promptly and the boy goes to bug his sibling. He could see why Gou didn't put up with either of the Mikoshiba brothers. Sousuke wasn't up for Momotarou’s antics today with the impending migraine which made him rub at his skull coarsely.  
  
Picking up the bag, he scrawled on it with a sharpie, stuffing it under his arm as he gets into the police car. His car is permeated with the sea and he really should get a car freshener, a pine tree that would be stringed up by the rear view mirror. The heater is dialed up as he rolls down the windows in the back to dispel the stench.  
  
The planetary laboratory is embedded on the swell of a hill that's more secluded than the residential areas, as Sousuke stalks up the stairs. The afternoon sun is still glazed out by the clouds, the weather unforgiving. Sousuke plunges his hands into his police slacks.  
  
He lets himself in and on the basis of his encounters, Ryuugazaki and Hazuki would be on the the upper floor, where the majority of research and observatory methodology were. Up another flight of a coiling stairwell and the double sliding doors are letting him in.  
  
In a dome room, the windows can fold in on one another to extend the gigantic telescope that is in the center of it. Computers and scientific machinery line the walls with glassware and every variation of liquids contained in test tubes. Papers are mixed in, pens and pencils are dispersed with papers and on the main computer are rainbows of sticky notes.  
  
The scientist and his assistant are busy by a whiteboard, one laying down a scientific equation and one coloring in a spaceship and alien that are in the complex numbering system of gas giants.  
  
“Hey.” The two jolt at his voice from routine instincts, though Hazuki is gleeful when seeing it's him.  
  
“Hi Sou-chan! What brings you here?” Hazuki caps his markers and bounds over to him.  
  
“Why are you here?” Ryuugazaki is absorbed in the calculations that he's cranking out, the felt-tip of the marker squeaking harshly. It's some molecular atomic model that goes off into formulas that Sousuke pays no mind to.  
  
“It's Yamasaki, drop the -chan.” He brings up the bag, taking out the dirtied lab coat. “I brought this back.”  
  
“Couldn't you have brought it back clean?” Nonetheless, he took it back and disappeared into out of the mechanical doors, muttering to himself of integers in the decimal units.  
  
“What brings you here?” Hazuki repeats. “And how is that naked guy doing?”  
  
Sousuke chooses his wording, painstakingly. “Fine enough.” He puts the bag back to his arm. Hazuki has unbounded eagerness that paralleled Momotarou, although Hazuki was much more conspiring, plotting something behind a buoyant grin and strawberry-tinted eyes.  
  
“That's great!”  
  
Blessedly Ryuugazaki comes back and before he can go back to his hypothesizing Sousuke halts him.  
  
“I do have questions for you two.”  
  
Ryuugazaki was appalled. “On what pretenses am I to be arrested on. If—”  
  
“I didn't say anything on arresting. Just questions.” Sousuke scowls as he reclines against a table, but opts to stand when his hand clinks with a glass vial. “Will you cooperate?”  
  
The man was going to object with some elongated rant but Hazuki cuts in swiftly. “No problem! We'll help in anyway Sou-chan.” Hazuki pounces on Ryuugazaki that makes the man bluster at him. Sousuke doesn't protest to him about honorifics because to Hazuki, everyone had a cutesy suffix.  
  
Sousuke flips open his notepad, pen poised. “What exactly happened upon finding the victim?”  
  
Ryuugazaki was about to speak but Hazuki blabbers on. “We woke up early”, he thinks, “6 AM-ish—”  
  
“Technically 5:50 AM was when we got there—”  
  
“—because me and Rei-chan were at the beach for more species of plankton and other sea things. We had been there for an hour on the far side of the coast and then we see this netting and legs. I thought it was something like a mannequin but it was a guy without anything on! And—”  
  
“Thanks.” He pretended that he's inscribing more than he did as the subtext could be inferred easily. He had been doing this for a while. “Was there anything else, out of the ordinary?”  
  
“No—nothing besides him. Although...” Ryuugazaki broke off his sentence.  
  
“Yes?” Sousuke queried.  
  
The scientist was perturbed. “I couldn't help but notice that the fish in the net were dead, days before. Not to mention all those scales.” Sousuke urges him on, striking his pen at his paper sharply to continue. He does. “Fish take time to decay, weeks. But most of the fish were already stripped to mere bones. It could be from predators in the ocean but…”  
  
“That would mean that Nanase would have been left longer in the ocean.” Undoubtedly he would be dead, Sousuke footnotes in his head. “Yet he was found today.”  
  
Ryuugazaki nods at him and Hazuki interjects.  
  
“But what if a predator did eat the fish?”  
  
Ryuugazaki was miffed. “But see that's where I don't get it. If there had been live prey in the net, apex consumers would have left no trace. And...Nanase was it?—wouldn't have been left unscathed. Dead fish aren't as tempting as lives ones.”  
  
Sousuke frowned. The fish in the nets had been eaten, but Nanase hadn’t been harmed at all, if his contusion on his ankle wasn’t accounted for. If he had been in a net at midnight or later than that, he would have died from not being able to swim from the net. It was made where anything inside couldn’t escape and would be left in the waters until the next hauls that ranged from a day to a week that he knew from Rin telling him when they were younger. His father was also passionate about being a fisherman.  
  
His ankle injury was caused by his struggling. He had been trying to get out of it and twisted it. But by the time he would have drowned. He would be dead. Why wasn’t he?  
  
They were in a intrusive pause as Sousuke wrote. There were more things he had to uncover but he didn’t know where to start.  
  
In his car, the engine rather than the heater, ventilated the car, stuffy and the smell less pronounced.  
  
As he left his car in the lot, he went off in a slower and thought-provoking stride.  
  
He should have taken his field notes at the time of the incident but it had been too bizarre and he had his hands full of Nanase. He went over the notes he had written. The date is in the page corner in the heading and he reads along the lines.  
  
—[Approximately 7:00 AM] Witnesses find the victim and make a report in.  
—[Approximately 7:13 AM] Upon arrival the individuals have touched the victim but haven't moved him. The victim does not have clothes and is disoriented. No signs of intoxication or drug usage, the breathalyzer confirms that and the test results. Victim has sustained an injury on the right ankle. Does not appear hurt in any other way. Ankle injury is self-inflicted. A lot of fish and fish skeletons. ~~Fish scales~~. No correlation. The fishing net and victim are taken back to the station.  
—[Approximately 2:25 PM] Have talked with the witnesses. No atypical activity of the two.  
  
—Leads: The netting (?)  
Haruka Nanase’s grandmother (?)  
  
He dashes off a question on the back of his notes: What is the predator that ate those fish?  
  
~~Who exactly is Haruka Nanase?~~  
  
He strikes through that and keeps it rebounding in his brain because he feels like he won't get an answer.  
  
Not the one he wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so some things to clear up. If the switching of Haruka to Nanase is confusing it's a linear progression of Sousuke adjusting to him. They may seem OOC but that'll change soon. 
> 
> I also did A LOT of research of fishing, police in America then Japan and suicide rates to be as concise as possible. Even the police notes. So this story will probably be extensive and I really don't know how many chapters there will be. I kinda picked this from my archives from a year ago and my writing changed from the first chapter due to some life changes. Whew, now that's over...
> 
> I have finals next week so it may be a while until my next update! Until then, happy holidays!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, kudos, anything will be appreciated! Thank you for reading! Updates (if wanted) may be every few weeks as I have college.


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